Roguebasin Registation

I saw a post in rec games roguelike development, requesting that participants in the 2012 7DRL register at Roguebasin. They said it would only take 30 seconds. So I thought I would do so. I went to the Roguebasin page. The page itself did not seems to have a way to edit it to add my entry. Then I saw a tab that looked interesting. Unfortunately I needed a Roguebasin account to modify the page.

Okay. I createrd an account. Then I was able to edit the page. However it was some kind of markup I did not recognize. I tried to use other examples as a template. But when I saved the changes and viewed them, they did not seem to work as expected. I decided to just add a simple text addition to the list of 7DRL entries on Roguebasin. So now I should be good to go. I just need to start my darn game already. Still procrastinating here.

Xbox 360 Setup

I have been sick for a few weeks. So my work on the roguelike game engine has been on hold. I need to get back to it. Finally I am feeling a little better. Perhaps tonight I shall fire up the IDE and knock out some action items.

Today I did put together my Xbox 360 gaming setup. The main TV is too busy for anyone to play our new Xbox 360 with Kinect. So I bought another big screen TV. Just been too sick to clear some space downstairs and set it up. Today I hooked up the Xbox 360. Played some Final Fantasy XIII too.

I am meeting the characters of FFXIII. There is a dude named Snow who seems tough and attacks by punching the opponent most of the time. Then there is some other chick who is scantily clad, and just leans back and sticks her crotch out most of the time. I don't complain too much. She heals other plays often during her turn.

Finally I saw some talk about scheduling the 7DRL Roguelike Challenge for this year. I plan to code up an entry in the Java programming language. With my newly learned skills, I should be a contender.

The Children of Hurin

I purchased and finally read the book The Children of Hurin. This is a type of prequel to The Long of the Rings. The real prequel is The Hobbit. The Children of Hurin takes place thousands of years earlier. The good news is that I am getting a lot of ideas for a new roguelike game.

I am getting ideas for all kinds of unique enemies, as well as great weapons from the book. So I am reading the book a second time and am taking a lot of notes. Perhaps I shall create a game based on the book during the next Seven Day Roguelike (7DRL) competition.

Previously I did a Roguelike called JSRL. But that was limited by my experience with the JavaScript programming language. This time I will write the game in Java. And I plan to rock and roll with it.

Notch Getting Busy

Recently Notch, the creator of the game Minecraft, participated in a 48 hour game creation contest. He spent the two days coding up a game from scratch. Notch has a lot of fans. About 10,000 of them watched as he streamed his computer screen while developing a game. Apparently this was an epic experience.

Notch banged out Java code. He did not need to Google any specific topics. Damn. The guy must know his APIs. The result was a 3D game that wss running a few hours before the 48 hour deadline. We need this guy participating in some roguelike 7DRLs. He might create something revolutionary.

This guy does have a day job. He works on his Mincraft game, as well as some other new games coming out from his company. You got to give this developer credit. He know how to knock out code.

The Competition

I am keeping an eye on the roguelike development newsgroup to see what others are up to. There were a lot of other people starting up their 7DRL entries after I announced mine.

Some developers are making great progress. It looks as though Stygia has navigational directions implemented already. And I am not sure, but Gnomes might already be done.

Luckily you are only competing against yourself and the clock in this contest. Everyone has the ability to win if you can produce a playable game within the one week time period.

Seven Day Roguelike

It is official. I am going to write an Angband like game in the next 7 days, or die trying. I posted my announcement as a reply in the rec games roguelike development USENET newgroup.

My game will be written in the JavaScript programming language. That means you will be able to run it in your web browser. It will be a challenge as I am learning JavaScript right now.

The goal will be to get anything running. I will be happy if I get some dungeons walls up, an "@" symbol running around, and some gold and monsters. The eventual goal is to have 10 dungeon levels and a big boss to fight at the end. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Time to start coding.

Game Over

I finally completed my new game Mazeband. It was completed in about siz days. So I can say that I met the 7DRL challenge.

Download a copy of Mazeband right now.

Make sure to click on "request download ticket". Then click on "download". Sorry I could not put this game on my hosting service. It is currently down at the moment. This was the best free alternative I could find.

Play the game by navigating with the number pad on your keyboard. Get all the gold in the least amount of turns. See how good a score you can achieve (lower scores are better). I hope to have a more exciting game next year. Peace out.

Mazeband Progress

Now I have my Mazeband game drawing 5 distinct rooms. They never overlap. That was quite an achievement.

You got to make sure a new random room is not in any existing rooms. The trick is that you have to also make sure none of the existing rooms are in the new random room.

We now come to the crux of my project. Time to join the rooms with halls. I only have 1 day left in my 7 day roguelike challenge. Will I make it? I got a can of Mountain Dew. And I have some ideas for the hall drawing algorithm. Wish me luck.

Roguelike Challenge Completed

I figured out how to distribute my game including the libraries and run time files it requires. Since I was in the 7 Day Roguelike Challenge, I posted the following declaration on Usenet group rec.games.roguelike.announce:

I completed my 7DRL entry dL1. It was written in Java and made use of libjcsi for input/output. It requires Java 1.6. You can get it at http://h1.ripway.com/gifcom/dL1/dL1.zip

Launch the game by typing "java dL1". Move around with the keypad. Numlock must be on to move diagonally. Press "q" to quit. Grab some gold. Attack young dragons. That's about it.

This is only my second real Java program. I am in a Java programming class at college. Read all about my 7DRL week on my blog http://legend-angband.blogspot.com/

- Legend of Angband

Challenge Accepted

Good news. I have decided to enter a 7 Day Roguelike game development contest. That means I have 7 days to program a game like Rogue. To make matters more difficult, I am going to write it in the Java programming language, which I am just starting to learn.

This should be good fun. My game is going to be called "dL1". It will be a 1 level dungeon. If I get the basics working, I shall try to get a dungeon level which extends indefinitely in each direction. I also plan to give the player a lot of great artifacts early.

I posted my intention to compete in this contest. You just need to add a post in Usenet group rec.games.roguelike.development. My post is there. The journey now begins. I will post screen shots of my progress here on my blog. Good luck to me. I will need it.